Jurisdiction
by MakeItVoid
Summary: Skull is the fearsome god of the underworld and Reborn is a little human who just died. They meet when Reborn slaughters his way across the underworld in protest because he's firmly an atheist and he would like to speak with management please.


Skull boredly stares down at the scrunched-up papers scattered between his stretched out legs and spins a pencil in one hand. His stunt bike is off to the side and the fraying backpack he kept the papers in was tossed carelessly over his shoulder onto the dirt track like with his helmet.

Skull looks up at the thin trees around him and then down at his work. He should work, since he personally accepts souls into the underworld, and everything goes to shit if he puts it off too long.

But also. Fuck this is boring.

Skull has to go through all the candidates and then judge if the underworld has enough space to accept them. If he says no to too many then the souls slip by and things get thrown off balance so the other gods come by to bully him. He's been doing this for eons but it's always such a trial.

Skull pouts at the paperwork and throws another lingering glance down the dirt bike trail. He sighs heavily and randomly rummages through the crumpled-up papers before picking one out. He holds it up and skims it quickly, eyes landing on the important parts from practice.

Person's name is Reborn, has a yellow soul, and...oh.

Perfect.

* * *

Skull jerks back hard enough to fall off his chair when a reaper is thrown through his home's front door. Skull scrambles up with help from the dinner table, accidentally knocking over his glass of soft drink and sticking his hand in the pan of mac n cheese that he's eating out of because all his pots are dirty and fuck your bowls and plates.

The reaper lands with a heavy thump on their back but the head is twisted around so the reaper is facing the ground. Skull blinks in shock because what the fuck is happening. Is someone attacking? Why is his territory being attacked? Mammon is the one with the riches, Fon is the one everyone wants to challenge for the strongest.

A tall figure steps through into Skull's house and the god lets out a relived sigh when he registers their soul, straightening up and wiping his cheese covered fingers off on his protective leathers.

It's only a little human. A cute thing with big black eyes and a neat little three piece suit and fedora combo. There's something absolutely adorable about the human's glare. Skull wants to pinch the human's fragile little cheeks.

"Hi there, Sweetheart," Skull says with a chirp. "You know that people can't die here, right?"

The human smirks wickedly. "But they do learn to stay out of my way." He glances down at the reaper. "Isn't that right?"

The reaper's head snaps the right way around in a quick, unnatural movement. They peer at the human, then Skull, and smoothly ghost to their feet before closing the door behind them on the way out.

Skull purses his lips. "So. I assume you're new."

"Yeah," the human murmurs as he stalks closer and even rounds the dinner table. "I just got the welcome pamphlet. Looks like a child made it."

"I made it."

The human leans on the edge of the table, giving the spilled soft drink a wide berth, and crosses his arms. "Sit down."

Skull looks around. "I'd love to, Baby, but -um- I'm eating lunch. Maybe we could do this later?"

The human looks very judgmentally down at Skull's pan of mac n cheese. "I won't take much of your time, I just want to talk about a small mix up that's happened."

"I can point you to a help desk-"

"Sit. Down." The human grits out.

Skull pats the human on the shoulder. "I'll call someone to take you there, Doll. You'll be in good hands. The first day is always the hardest but you'll get used to things."

"I'm atheist," the human finally snaps out, slapping away Skull's hand. "I don't do the afterlife thing. I did everything I wanted, whenever I wanted, during life. I have no regrets and I went out with a bang. This afterlife thing is making that look really anticlimactic. I mean I can't even kill people here and all my friends are still alive!"

"Ooooh," Skull drags out. "Yeah, I get it, but nah, this isn't a religious thing, so no worries." He rightens the chair he fell from and flops down into his seat before lazily picking out a cooling piece of macaroni from the pan.

The human sighs heavily in frustration and sits fully on the table, crossing his legs at the knee. "I don't care what this is. I'm not under your jurisdiction and I'm politely asking you to let me die properly."

"All souls are my jurisdiction."

Skull goes for more food but the human lifts the pan and throws it through the closed window, sending the food and glass shards into the street.

Skull licks his fingers and leans back. "If you'd read the pamphlet you'd know that this place is only populated by people who have directly taken a soul into their own. Let me guess; you accidentally ran someone over? Self defence? Worked on a farm with cattle? As a vet and had to put down animals?"

"I'm a hitman," the human deadpans. "Reborn, the world's greatest. People pay me to be a serial killer. Sometimes I just murder people for fun too."

Skull blinks. "Oh. Oh, right, I remember your file. Yellow soul, really heavy. Yeah, you'll stay here a while since you took so many lives directly. This place slowly separates the souls from yours and then when it's done, we'll send you all off into the washer then back into a randomised world."

Reborn takes a moment, staring off past Skull and into nothing. Skull starts bouncing his leg because he still craves cheesy goodness even though he doesn't need to eat.

"How long do I have to stay here?" Reborn finally asks.

"How many did you kill?" Skull questions back.

"More than you can count," Reborn sneers. He stands and straightens out his suit jacket with a few well-placed tugs on his sleeve cuffs. "Who is your manager? Where do they reside?"

"I am the manager," Skull says with jazz hands. "This is my territory. There's no one higher."

Reborn tilts his fedora down until it shades his eyes. "People can't die here. But they can still feel pain."

"Uh," Skull begins. "I mean yeah but I'm a little different - _oh fuck!_"

Reborn lunges and Skull scrambles back.

* * *

Fon looks up when Skull's body is thrown down in front of him.

"Hello," Fon says politely to the stranger and uncrosses his legs from the lotus position before rising fully. "May I help you?"

"I would like to introduce myself," the human says. "My name is Reborn and I have taken over Skull's territory." Reborn smirks. "Let's get along."

Fon smiles back. "I'm afraid that's not how this works. You are a soul and we are-"

"Skull gave me a pacifier."

Fon takes a breath. "Excuse me for a moment." He grabs the back of Skull's collar and drags the other away until he's sure Reborn can't hear them.

Skull continues to play dead for a while and let's himself be dragged across the ground but eventually gets to his feet when Fon patiently waits long enough.

"Why?" Fon demands.

"He tortured me?" Skull tries.

"You don't feel pain," Fon retorts.

"And he was so upset when he found out," Skull half coos. "His pout is adorable. My baby is the cutest thing I've ever seen." Skull pauses and looks up to the Eldritch abomination that always follows him, swallowing the sky above with its enormity. "No offence, Oodako."

Oodako makes a rumbling sound and the mass of kilometre-wide tentacles filling the sky slither across each other, reaching lower into the atmosphere of Fon's territory and exerting a pressure that makes a gust of fierce wind radiate outwards.

"Why did you give him the pacifier?" Fon asks again calmly, hair and clothes whipping around him.

Skull clasps his hands together in front of him, sheepish. "Fon. Buddy. Have you ever been literally fucked through a wall? Because I would have given him far more than the pacifier if he only asked."

"He seduced you," Fon summarises.

"And he's very good at it," Skull admits. "So romantic as well. He said we could rule hell together."

"You don't rule hell. We don't even have a hell."

"He said we could make hell and then rule it together," Skull clarifies. "Voracious little murderer, isn't he?"

"Why are you making it sound like a good thing? That's not a good thing."

"It could be," Skull hedges. "Reborn says he can rule here while the dimension separates the souls from him, then he'll go kill some more people and come back after. We still keep the balance but less paperwork for me because my cutie supplies all the souls."

Fon raises an eyebrow. "That won't work because other people who have heavy souls still need to be separated-"

"Reborn will only kill people with heavy souls," Skull says. "He was a hitman before, this is practically the same thing."

Fon looks back at the yellow soul who appears to be watching Oodako closely, head tipped all the way back to stare up at the sky, and one hand on his hat so it doesn't fall off. The human is a yellow soul anyway and everyone knows yellows are instinctive healers and caretakers. This one can't possibly be too bad.

Fon turns to Skull. "If the others say yes then I'll say yes."

"Thank you!" Skull says excitedly and glomps Fon around the waist. "Thank you so much! You won't regret it!"

* * *

"Let me get this straight," Lal begins, peering over Skull's shoulder at Reborn sitting on the god's motorbike a fair distance away. "That fellow over there gave you bedroom eyes-"

"It was a lot more than that," Skull interrupts. "He does this thing with his tongue-"

Lal glares. "So he whored himself out for a pacifier and now you're a hundred percent on board with throwing out the system that works and has worked efficiently for eons to instead use your boy toy."

"Yes," Skull declares.

"Huh," Colonnello says slowly. "Sex was that good?"

"Amazing. You should try him at least once-"

"Boys," Lal snaps. "Focus. This is a serious matter."

Skull shrugs. "We'll do a trial run. If it doesn't work then that's fine."

"Has he been feeding you lines?" Lal asks. "Because your arguments are very well thought out and that's everything that you aren't."

"I am repeating verbatim," Skull admits. "But they're convincing, right? So can we try at least? Reborn isn't going anywhere either. His territory is already building itself so you're stuck with him."

"Is it nice?" Colonnello asks. "Or is it like Verde's place?"

"It's a garden," Skull happily describes. "So beautiful. His helpers are these adorable lizards and Sunshine is so cute with them."

Lal rolls her eyes. "Call everyone instead of doing it one by one. We need to design a trial anyway if people are up for it so we'll do it all at once."

* * *

"Sure," Verde drawls.

"Don't care," Mammon huffs.

"I vote yes," Colonnello declares.

"I'll allow a trial first," Lal warns.

"This could be good," Luce says happily.

"Suppose it's a yes from me then," Fon muses.

Skull turns excitedly to Reborn and gets a pat on the head from the hitman.

This is pretty much how Reborn takes over the universe.


End file.
